Rustan Laine

Green technology will only continue to improve the lives of the Earth’s inhabitants. Every major industrial country – from China to Germany is investing in and creating jobs and new industries through new energy technologies. From geo-thermal and wind to solar power to energy efficiency programs, the US has created the leading technology but has found a way to let these other countries lead the business side of the equation.

The following article outlines why it is important for the US to lead in the emerging energy technologies.

Consider this: Solar power was invented in the U.S. as a spin-off of the space program. But our largest solar energy import is solar panels, spending $2.4 billion in 2010 while exporting only $1.4 billion worth, according to an August 29, 2011, Solar Energy Industries Association study. Whats worse is our largest solar industry export was $2.5 billion worth of polysilicon, the material used to make solar panels. In other words, were selling the raw material to other countries that build the solar panels we invented so they can sell them back to us. How does that make sense?

Reducing your energy demand and making sure that heating, AC and other utlities are as efficient as possible is the first step in reducing your energy costs.

Weatherization of existing buildings can significantly reduce demand and allow for the installation of alternative energy systems that are more efficient because of the reduced demand.

The programs outlined in this post not only offer valubale job training but help create a more efficient society.

WIPP Weatherization Training #1: Organic Think and BPI Preparation This training is scheduled for August 29th – September 1st 2011 to be held at the United Way of Long Island’s new 5,000 square foot Green Construction Training Lab, also known as United Way’s E3 Energy/Efficiency/Education Career Training Center, and located at 10 Dunton Avenue in Deer Park, NY. It is geared for YouthBuild construction trainers and members of your weatherization crew staff YouthBuild graduates preferred. At the end of this training, you will be prepared to:Use the Organic Think weatherization curriculum www.organicthink.com, for which YouthBuild USA is paying a 2-year licensing agreement for each of you to use with your crews and YouthBuild students.Take the BPI Residential Building Envelope Whole House Air Leakage Control Installer certification test. The second training, date TBD, will be the certification testing itself.

Reducing demand is the first part of a cohenert energy policy – or plan for most home owners. By reducing the demand for electricity, alternative energy systems can be smaller to meet your household needs. Savings from energy efficiency long after payments for the upgrades have been completed.

The following is the mission statement from the efficiency first web site:

Residential efficiency improvements can reduce energy waste in most homes by 20 to 40 percent. A nationwide initiative to improve the efficiency of America’s 128 million homes has the potential to unlock significant reductions in building-related greenhouse gas emissions, improve national security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and generate long-term energy savings for American consumers.

Expansion of the Home Performance industry also represents a crucial path to economic growth in the face of historically high unemployment and unprecedented weakness in the construction and manufacturing sectors. Consumer demand for efficiency retrofits will create hundreds of thousands of high-paying local jobs that cannot be outsourced overseas, while stimulating a surge of manufacturing of building materials primarily made by American workers.

Google has created a video on its Green Blog detailing its green transportation initiatives, which include biodiesel campus shuttles and solar panels on buses. More than 3,000 Google staff ride a shuttle bus to the company’s Mountain View headquarters every day.

“Google continues to drive innovation and leadership in the workplace. The results of their clean transportation efforts are remarkable, taking the equivalent of over 2,000 cars off the road every day,” Coulomb executive vice president Bret Sewell said.

“We’re only one company among many, so we hope our green transportation initiatives serve as a model for other companies to incorporate sustainability programs into their own workplaces,” Google’s technical program manager for electric transportation Rolf Schreiber said.

SAN DIEGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Envision Solar International, Inc., (OTCBB:EVSI), a leading sustainable infrastructure designer and developer, announced that it has been selected by Renewvia Energy to be the exclusive provider of EnvisionTrak™ Solar Tree® structures and CleanCharge™ Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure for the company’s growing pipeline of high quality solar deployments. The companies are currently approaching completion on a major project in Arizona.

Envision Solar’s solar parking arrays provide both shade and clean electricity for their owners. The architecturally superior, highly engineered designs are ideal for parking structures and surface lots, and environments that prefer competitively priced clean renewable energy. Additionally, they create added value for the property in the form of covered parking. The company designs and installs its Solar Tree® structures and Solar Groves® for a wide range of environments, including corporate campuses, commercial office buildings, light industrial facilities, shopping malls, restaurants, government buildings, schools, universities and hospitals.

“We are pleased to have been selected by Renewvia to provide our iconic solutions for their projects,” said Envision Solar President Desmond Wheatley. “Renewvia’s commitment to quality has been very apparent throughout the 300kw project we have just completed with them and we look forward to working together on many more solar covered parking projects.”

While being environmentally friendly has long been a liberal thing, more and more conservatives are joining in because solar power and other alternative energy projects save them money. When considering a solar power system, remember that the first step is to reduce your demand or be energy efficient – building a system that meets those reduced demand needs will make the system more cost-efficient and will help educate the owner on where their power demands can be reduced.

Largest solar panel in Tri-Cities set to save business owner moneyLargest solar panel in Tri-Cities set to save business owner… Added: May 17, 2011Between his framing business and his art gallery, Dick Nelson spends roughly $6,000 a year on electricity. However, by the end of 2011, he could make money. more1 Ratings | 34 Video ViewsPost a Comment or Rate this Video» View More Videos By NATE MORABITO Published: May 17, 2011» 5 Comments | Post a CommentJOHNSON CITY, TN –Between his framing business and his art gallery, Dick Nelson spends roughly $6,000 a year on electricity. However, by the end of 2011, he could make money.”My goal is for at the end of the year for the power board to send me a check,” Nelson said.If and when that happens, he’ll have the 63 solar panels on his roof to thank. After last year’s oil spill in the gulf, Nelson started thinking about solar energy.”I believe in being a good steward of the environment,” Nelson said. “Theres no danger in mining solar energy. A lot of people forget there were 11 people killed in the oil spill.”A Tennessee Solar Institute stimulus grant and federal tax credit paid for two-thirds of the project. Nelson paid for the rest.”It will take about five years to pay for itself,” Nelson said. “It just kind of makes sense. 93 million miles away, we have this burning star of our sun and it’s producing more electricity every second than we can possibly use.”The downtown business owner is now creating energy for the Tennessee Valley Authority. In return, the TVA is selling him electricity at a discounted rate.Nelson is just the latest to join in on the solar craze. 14 others are also participating in the same program through the Johnson City Power Board.“13 of those customers are residential customers and two are commercial customers,” Johnson City Power Board Chief Public Relations Officer Robert White said. “We have five more contracts pending. Its a program that continues to grow. We actually have several of those participants right now who actually are able to generate some credits on their account. Theyre actually generating more electricity than theyre using.”LightWave Solar Electric installed Nelson’s solar power system. Although it’s the largest the company’s installed in the region, it’s not the first.

Just one of many alternative energy technologies that the US Government should be investing in – isn’t that the point of government programs?

@TheBrknGuitar Its a brand new technology. US patent was granted last month, foreign pending. Not enough people know it exists yet, but they will. Projects are now being planned at several locations, but publicity is the key because the system is so obvious that it can do nothing else BUT work & people know that when they see it. Spread the word. It will be built, but it takes time to change established thought.This﻿ is the ONLY nuclear scale, true baseload green technology in existence.

Envision (EVSI) is the first to invent and build solar parking structures Contrary to what you may think, solar units don’t require rooftops and cornfields—not anymore. Envision’s management team saw other ways to harness the power of the sun. That’s when their vision of solar parking lotswas born.

They are taking the billions upon billions of acres of unused parking spaces and incorporating solar structures that would be used to harness energy. That energy would charge hybrid or electric cars and offset energy costs for companies using grid-connected solar systems.

Within a company parking lot Envision installs a “SolarGrove” which is made up of an array of “SolarTrees.” Not only do the “SolarTrees” provide shade, they’re equipped with charging stations for plug-in electric and hybrid vehicles.

At the same time, those solar trees offset some of the company’s energy usage through grid-connected solar systems. Once they had the SolarGrove and SolarTree technology in place, Envision saw a way to capitalize even further on their innovative concept.

Envision has taken these solar parking structures and launched the first Clean Charge Solar Charging Systems to the QSR market—Quick Service Restaurants—better known as fast food. There are about 85,000 fast food restaurants in the U.S. leaving the door wide open for booming sales and revenue. Customers can charge their plug-in or electric hybrid vehicle while they eat—while the restaurant offsets some of its energy usage. It’s a win-win.

Clearly, Dell thinks this is a good idea Technology giant Dell has bought in on EVSI’s innovation. Dell is the very company Newsweek named 2nd on their environmental ranking of America’s 500 largest corporations. The technology giant has already installed Envision’s Solar Grove in the parking lot at their Texas headquarters. That includes two of Envision Solar’s Clean Charge systems that total 100.62 kilowatts.

All of these big name companies are using Envision’s solar applications.

For a young clean energy company to have Dell, McDonalds, Kyocera and Johnson & Johnson as clients, you know EVSI is onto something substantial.

Across the country Envision has installed solar systems for schools, hospitals, corporations and public agencies. In addition to the solar parking arrays and charging systems for cars, Envision also designs and builds solar infrastructure and building systems that include modular, light gauge steel-based systems with integrated battery storage capacity for residential, light-commercial and developing nation applications.

Here’s a quick look at just a few of EVSI’s additional residential LifeSystems solar innovations:

LifePod—doubles as a backyard office or guest room. With 8 solar panels on the roof a LifePod can reduce electricity usage up to 30% in the average household.

LifePort—a PV solar carport for both grid-tied and off-grid applications.

LifeBarn—ideal for horse farms or ranches, it’s sized like a standard barn and includes room for feed, tack and stalls.

LifeVillage—a grouping of LifePorts that become self-contained, decentralized power plants and power grids, including highly engineered facilities with limitless uses. LifeVillages are ideal for schools, clinics and medical facilities in developing nations where energy is unaffordable. They provide shelter, clean energy and purified water.

To date, Envision Solar has designed 9 megawatts of solar projects, installed 1.4 megawatts of solar

systems and has approximately 70 megawatts of solar projects in their pipeline. Projects have been designed and installed from California to Texas, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The solar structures are designed to increase output by 20 percent over a standard fixed PV array. The initial installations, planned for Detroit, Michigan and New Castle, Pa., are scheduled for completion beginning May 2011.

Company Founder, CEO and EnvisionTrak inventor, Robert Noble stated, By achieving this important milestone, our team has advanced our patented Solar Tree products into Envision Solars next generation, ultra-high output solar parking array technologies. EnvisionTrak is one of several key technology advances we have developed and is targeted at a fully integrated Tracking Solar Tree System. Solar parking arrays have structural and functional requirements which are unique to this new building type and there are limiting factors of specific sites. However, our EnvisionTrak technology, a hybrid multi-axis design, provides a highly functional solution which allows the entire Solar Tree canopy to track the sun, while not restricting traffic flow in drive aisles of parking lots.

We continue to pursue an aggressive technology and product development program, including soon to be announced, fully integrated EV charging stations. Demand for our new Tracking Solar Tree System is coming from every sector: utilities, corporations, military, municipalities, departments of transportation, cities, electric vehicle manufacturers and dealers, and many other markets. The EnvisionTrak integrated Solar Tree product satisfies these markets need for robust, infrastructure quality, high utility, high design, low-maintenance distributed solar energy production.

Envision Solars President Desmond Wheatley added, Our company has long been recognized as the leading inventor and project developer of solar parking array systems, with projects installed throughout the U.S. including Dell Computer Headquarters in Round Rock, Texas and the National Renewable Energy Labs in Golden, Colo. With our new EnvisionTrak technology, we can now provide a greatly reduced cost of solar generation for our customers, and far more clean energy output from each installation, while still providing much-needed shade for cars and people, and an architecturally beautiful enhancement to the neighborhood.

Envision Solar’s President Desmond Wheatley added, “Our company has long been recognized as the leading inventor and project developer of solar parking array systems, with projects installed throughout the U.S. including Dell Computer Headquarters in Round Rock, Texas and the National Renewable Energy Labs in Golden, Colo. With our new EnvisionTrak™ technology, we can now provide a greatly reduced cost of solar generation for our customers, and far more clean energy output from each installation, while still providing much-needed shade for cars and people, and an architecturally beautiful enhancement to the neighborhood.”

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